1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information transmitting apparatuses and methods for transmitting licenses to use content to various information receiving apparatuses, information receiving apparatuses and methods for receiving the licenses and for using the content within the scope of the terms of use of the licenses, and information providing systems including such information transmitting apparatuses and information receiving apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to development and wide use of digital apparatuses, such as computers, digital content (hereinafter, referred to as content), such as music and images, has been available. Also, services, such as purchasing content via the Internet, are increasing.
For example, if a client that receives such services is a personal computer (hereinafter, referred to as a PC), a user first installs a player capable of playing content and then purchases the content from a Web site (or Web server) on the Internet. When the user transmits user information (or client information) to the server, a license for the PC is downloaded. Thus, the user can use the content within the scope of the terms of use of the license. The license is issued by the server by combining data in which the terms of use is written and information allowing identification of the client (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-359616).
For a service, content has been played by a client dedicated to the service using dedicated software.
Recently, in addition to PCs, various types of network-compatible consumer electronics apparatuses (hereinafter, referred to as CE apparatuses) capable of connecting to the Internet have emerged. However, there has been no server that can create data on the terms of use corresponding to a plurality of types of clients having different performances. Thus, it has been necessary to provide a server corresponding to each type of client. Therefore, for example, if a new CE apparatus having a performance different from the existing apparatus is developed, a service cannot be provided to the new CE apparatus immediately.